How I Found My Way To The Deluge

I remember reading about the Deluge a couple of years back and thinking “Hmm.. that sounds pretty damn interesting, wonder if they can pull it off” after reading the rather ambitious feature list. A couple of years went by and I got sidetracked by work and kids, that sort of thing, and didn’t really do much with music or machines. If you’ve read any of my previous entries from years past, you may know that I am quite fond of the idea of having an all-in-one groovebox and, for many years, I have been on a quest to find the one that really speaks to me.

The Tempest is my all time favorite so far but, of course, it doesn’t sample. So my last attempt to find the sampling groovebox of my dreams was the MV-8800. Absolute beast of a machine and, when it comes to sampling and arranging, it can do just about anything you need it to. But I never gelled with the interface; it always seemed too complicated and joyless to me. Simple things like creating a drum kit just were not as quick and easy as I had hoped and every time I turned it off, I felt worried and stressed out that I wasn’t saving something properly and would somehow lose my work. I think that kind of contributed to my hiatus from synths and samplers and whatnot. And the load times certainly didn’t help (hey, like all of us, I’ve become a little bit spoiled by technology).

But then, the MPC Live came along. Well, let me correct that. The MPC Live *was announced*. It took a very long time before it was actually available. I knew I wanted one but I eventually got tired of waiting and ended up buying the Pioneer SP-16, thinking maybe it would be similar enough and, if not, I would just sell it whenever the MPC Live was finally available. It sounded amazing and I was rather surprised to find that I was pretty happy with it and eagerly awaiting the promised (and hinted at) updates that seemed like they would make it the best sampler ever. Well, Pioneer took note of all the great ideas that the (rather enthusiastic) user community hurled at them… and promptly created a new version of the SP-16 (without the DSI filter that made it sounds do damn good) that was aimed at DJ’s and incorporated some of the better ideas they had been given. The SP-16, meanwhile, got a magnificent, glorious 1.4 update that added… the ability to copy and paste patterns from one slot to another [/sarcasm]. Ok, so they also doubled the sample time from 32 seconds to 64 but, of course, it was poorly implemented, as the machine can still only do 4 bar patterns and doesn’t allow a 64 second sample to play through in a sequence without an overly complicated workaround. I’m not going to go into that any further because I will just upset myself all over again. We’ll just say that the 1.4 update that Pioneer touted as a “monster update” was anything but that and addressed none of the real shortcomings of the machine.

So, by this time, the MPC Live had been out for awhile and I found a decent deal on one and snatched it up. Shipping time was going to be about a week and, two days into my wait, I saw a Deluge on Ebay and remembered all of the things it was supposed to be able to do. I researched quite a bit and it appeared that, at firmware version 1.3, it was the real deal. So I performed some mental gymnastics to justify buying another $900 box and did the deed. It arrived a mere two days later, even before the MPC Live, which I had ordered first. The point of all of this is to say that this all happened about two months ago and I have been working with my Deluge every single day since I got it, while the MPC Live sits lonely, dejected, and probably wondering why it isn’t getting any attention. And THAT is the point of this post: To explain to all of you what is so great about the Deluge that it has actually made the mighty MPC Live into not much more than an afterthought for me when, really, the Live IS the DAW in a box that I’ve always wanted. So here is my take on the Deluge.

What Is The Deluge?

The Deluge is a synth, sequencer and sampler (and by extension of that, of course, also a drum machine). It has a battery that gives you upwards of 6 hours of battery time, an onboard speaker and microphone (not bad quality either, really) for the ultimate in portability. While it is a great sampler for both drums and synthesis, it is not just another rompler, as it also has 2.5 synth engines onboard. The first is a rather deep and nice sounding 2 oscillator virtual analog engine, the second is a 2-op [not 4op, as I had originally written] FM engine and the “.5” is a ring mod section. The most noticeable thing, however, has got to be the interface that is used to access all of these features. It is very light on knobs but heavy on RGB pads, with a whopping 128 pad grid for sequencing and 16 pads along the side for muting and auditioning/selecting each track. So that is a very general assessment of the feature set, but let’s look at it in a bit more detail.

The Hardware

Physically, it is SMALL, occupying approximately the space of 3 Korg Volcas (perhaps even a bit smaller than that) and, as a result, one of the first things people will notice is that it has but one stereo out. So if individual outputs are something you absolutely must have, you’ll need to look elsewhere, unfortunately. But it is sturdy and well built and, in my opinion, very aesthetically pleasing. Classy, even. The 2 black knobs on the left are used to scroll what is displayed on the pad grid up/down and left/right. In sequencer mode, the grid is where you enter your notes, with each row of 16 corresponding to a note (which can be muted and auditioned using the 16 pads on the right). In song view, each row of 16 represents a synth track or a “kit” track, with the rightmost pads being for muting and designating sections (groups of tracks). In “keyboard” view, it is where you can do live playing with either the C note of each octave lit up in a different color or by using a Linnstrument style layout, with notes arranged as frets on a guitar. And finally, in kit mode, each row represents one sound, each with its own sequencer line and mute/audition pad. You will find that the black scroll knobs are crucial because the number of bars in your song and the number of sounds you can have in your kits is, according to the manual, “limited only by the RAM.” And I have to say, I have yet to hit that limit and I have had as many as 130 sounds in one drum kit.

The Knobs

The two gold knobs kind of stand out from the rest of the machine and they perform a very important function, as they can have a wide range of parameters assigned to them. They have a row of buttons in between them and each button equals one pair of parameters. So, really, this section does the work of 16 encoders, quite handily. By default, the parameters you would probably use the most are assigned, but you can freely reassign any of them, not just the three slots marked “custom.” Once you’ve got a parameter assigned, the movements of the gold knobs can be recorded into your sequence on any track. Further more, you can hold down the pad for any step, turn one of the gold knobs and parameter lock whatever is assigned to it. What I think is a very nice touch is that you also have a four segment meter by each of the knobs that will show you, roughly, what value it is at as you turn it. It’s also worth noting that every encoder can be clicked by pushing down on it to perform various functions. For example, if you have filter assigned to one of the gold knobs and you click it, it switches between adjusting the LPF and HPF (yes, you get both types on every sound). If you have reverb assigned, it will switch between the different “room sizes” that are available. And to add yet another layer of easy accessibility, holding shift while you click an encoder will unveil yet another function, in many situations. So, although many people are turned off by the apparent lack of knob-iness of the interface, the design choices they’ve made here really give you all the hands on control you need. Trust me. This is coming from a guy who was very skeptical at first, but this interface simply WORKS.

The Screen

Up next, we’ll look at the screen. Now, here again, I was very skeptical. One of the main reasons I had for buying both the SP-16 and the MPC Live was that I was beyond excited to finally have a sampler with a modern touchscreen. And on the Deluge, we have quite the opposite, in a 7-segment 4 character alarm clock type screen. How can that possibly work, right? Well, the biggest downside to this is with sample management, obviously. I had become used to scrolling through dozens of folders containing thousands of samples. How could it even be possible to get used to this screen? Well, first things first, it bears mentioning that, with the 1.4 firmware update, folder and sample names now scroll across the screen, which makes things much, much easier. But even before that, I noticed that I was spending a lot less time worrying about scrolling for the perfect sample and a lot more time just loading something up and making music. Really, with just a little bit of planning, it’s pretty easy to create a folder structure that makes it easy to find what you need. On the root directory, there is a folder for samples and it contains a few folders for the different factory samples. I just created another folder for my own samples and just named it “23.” Since I named it a number, it always shows up on top, since the folders are displayed in alphabetical order. And within that folder, I made a few more folders simply named “1-6” and just had to remember what types of samples I had put in each. One has single cycle waveforms, another has breakbeats, another contains a few subfolders of large sample collections I’ve accumulated over the years, and so on. When browsing samples, a quick click of the Select knob will take you into a folder and a tap of the Undo button will back you up one level. When you do get to the sample you want (and yes, it does preview them as you scroll through), just click the Select knob and it will load the sample and take you back out to the main screen. A nice touch here is that when you go to load another sample on a different pad, it starts you off right on the last sample you loaded. So if you’re building a kit from a folder full of drum samples, it’s really a lot quicker and easier than you would probably expect.

As far as editing sample start and end points, I’ve spent many years with samplers where you do it by ear so it wasn’t that hard for me to get used it again. The left/right encoder, in this mode, moves which decimal place you are adjusting, so it’s actually not as tedious as you might think. A nice touch here is that the Deluge can do autochop, though only into a user selectable number of equal slices at the current firmware version (1.4). But, unlike a lot of samplers I’ve used, you can edit the end point of one sample without affecting the start point of the next one. So you can have overlap between the sounds in your kit if you like, which is kind of handy when dealing with breakbeats or vocals. Example: you like that snare hit on the end of your first chop but you’d also like to be able to play/sequence it just by itself? No problem.

Another area where the screen might still fall short for you would be with your patch and kit names, which are just numbers. But here again, they used some real outside the box thinking. When you have a saved patch loaded and you edit its parameters in any way, the display changes to show a letter suffix. For example, patch “1” becomes “1a” and so on. Same with kits. So, with a little planning again, you can have “patch 1” be a category. Say, maybe pads, or leads, or bass sounds, or however you want to organize. And then you can save 27 sounds under one number (1 – 1z). And then when you go to scroll through your patches, holding the shift button will skip all of the sounds with letter suffixes. So again, it’s very quick to find what you want and, I think, very handy that the Deluge automatically re-names the patch as soon as you edit it. Another interesting side effect for my workflow is that I spend way less time making up stupid names for my patches (yes, it ate up a lot of time for me on other synths, don’t judge) and more time just creating new sounds.

The Synth Engine(s)

The synthesis capabilities of the Deluge run a lot deeper than you might expect and it sounds quite good. The FM engine is a little sparse at this time, with the screen displaying “Can’t” or “Soon” for several of the parameters. But, as I understand it, Synthstrom are planning to develop this further. But for now, you can use basic FM (not to mention the “Ring Mod” engine) to get some nice, metallic sounds. I look at it as a bonus, for now. Really though, how many grooveboxes even offer any type of FM synthesis? There are a few out there, though if they do FM, that’s usually *all* they do (Volca FM, Digitone, the old Yamaha DX-200, etc). Not so in this case.

The real star of the show here is the subtractive synth engine. It’s got two oscillators which allow you to choose between the standard square (with PWM), saw, sine and triangle wave. But there are also two other options: sample and input. So let’s just start with using samples. Just the fact that you can layer two samples puts the Deluge well ahead of most of the competition. Just look at every Elektron sampler (come on, you knew that comparison was coming) and you won’t find a single one of them that will let you layer two samples, let alone polyphonically AND with up to 8x unison/detune. Older grooveboxes like Roland’s MC-909/808 let you layer up to four samples (with polyphony) but, for reasons that I can not fathom, this type of functionality fell, largely, by the wayside, even as technology *should have* made it more and more common.

And then you’ve got one of my absolute favorite tricks that the Deluge has up its proverbial sleeve: line-in audio as an oscillator with live, polyphonic pitch shifting. If you think about that for just a moment, this allows you to play any monosynth through the Deluge with a sort of emulation of polyphony. The way this works, you create your synth voice with the line in assigned to an oscillator. You then sequence a sustained note that spans the length of the pattern. You can then sequence further notes in the same way and it will play it at all of the sequenced pitches, simultaneously. So, logically, if you set your sustained notes at the proper intervals, the incoming audio will, effectively, be played as a chord. Now, I know it’s not *true* polyphony for your monosynths, but it is close enough. And that is a trick that I don’t believe I’ve ever seen before.

As for patch editing, let’s just put all of the “it’s too much menu diving” myth to bed. You can access all of the parameters by pushing the Select knob and doing full on menu diving, “painting through a keyhole” style if you want to, but you don’t have to. Most of the 128 pads in the grid have a shortcut assigned to them to take you directly to the parameter you want, simply by holding the shift button and hitting a pad. It’s dead easy. It actually reminds me of the old Roland MC-09 (the one that was a looper/303 emulation) except with a lot more pads. If you’re buying a Deluge, I very strongly recommend that you get it with the option to have the shortcuts printed on. But, if you’d happen to find a used one that doesn’t have them printed, you can also get a magnetic overlay that will fix that for you (I think it’s like $20 or so).

Like I alluded to above, the subtractive engine on the Deluge is fairly deep. It’s not going to make you rush to sell off your DSI synths, for example, but it’s much deeper than, say, an Electribe, which it has drawn more than a few comparisons to. You get 8 modulation sources (that’s 2 envelopes, 2 LFO’s, velocity, aftertouch, note and random) and the ability to modulate the modulation depth of one parameter per sound (that includes every sound in a drum kit as well). It handles single cycle waveforms with ease and, as mentioned, allows you to layer two of them if you like. Unfortunately, both oscillators go into the filter together, so you can’t, for example, run one through the LPF and the other through the HPF. But you can independently assign the pitch, PWM or volume for each to different modulators. So there is plenty of potential for creating pads with a lot of movement (probably my favorite type of sound to make on it, to be honest).

For effects, per sound, you get: a nice lo-fi/distortion section (with saturation, bitcrush and decimation, delay with a fair amount of control and your choice of phaser, chorus or flanger. Reverb is available as a send and has a few parameters to tweak (it’s no Strymon but it gets the job done). You also get dedicated bass and treble with a frequency parameter for each. Unfortunately, though you can parameter lock/motion record most effect parameters, you are not able to assign them to the modulation sources, currently. But where the effects really shine is in creating drum kits. Remember when I mentioned that you could have, potentially, hundreds of sounds in a drum kit? Well, each of those sounds have their own independent effects (except for the reverb, which is shared by the kit). There is also a stutter “effect” and, if you’re sampling the Deluge into some other piece of gear, you could use the tempo itself as an effect, as it goes from ~0 all the way up to 10,000 bpm. Some interesting textures to be had there, if you’re feeling adventurous.

As A Drum Machine

Every sound in your drum kit has the full synth engine available to it, so you can layer a modeled wave (with a noise generator) over a sample, you could use two samples per sound or you could even build full kits using the FM and ring mod engines. So it’s very versatile and, structurally, bears some resemblances to both the Analog Rytm and the Tempest (albeit, virtual analog instead of the real deal). I’ve found the lo-fi effects to be absolutely wonderful in creating drum kits, personally. You can really get some nice crunch, if that’s what you’re after.

But the biggest advantage that I can see the Deluge having over any other drum machines that might compete with it, is sequencing with the pad grid. Now, on practically every groovebox since grooveboxes have been a thing, the common thread has been 16 pads or buttons for sequencing a bar of one sound at a time. This has always been adequate, of course, but you have to think, the Deluge gives you access to one bar of 8 different sounds at all times. You can sequence them all at the same time, if you wish, and you can even set probability and parameter locks for multiple notes and multiple sounds at the same time. It’s simply never been done before.

External Sequencing

So, of course the Deluge can do midi sequencing, but it also has CV/gate outs and the full complement of parameter locks, motion sequencing, swing, arpeggiators and probability per step are available in these modes. I hate to bring Elektron into this again, but their sequencers are kind of considered the standard that we measure by these days. If we compare them side by side, the Deluge stacks up quite nicely. The only things that Elektron have on it that I can think of right now would the ability to use sample trigs, one shot trigs and scenes. Although, via the Deluge’s “midi learn,” I’ve read that you can get an approximation of scene functionality (though I haven’t experimented with it myself). Two areas in which the Deluge easily surpasses any Elektron sequencer are pattern length and number of tracks. And with the latest firmware, you can assign multiple tracks to the same midi channel, which opens up another avenue for your creativity. You can also clone tracks and create “sections,” which gives you even more flexibility in how you want to arrange or perform.

Line In Sampling

The easiest way I’ve found to sample and re-sample is in kit mode. If you’ve ever used a Korg Microsampler, you are probably familiar with its “key gate” sampling mode. Basically, you hold down a key to begin sampling and release it to end sampling, at which time the sample you’ve just created stays right there on that key and you can move on to another key. Very quick and easy, no need to stop and save the sample and assign it. Well, the Deluge’s kit mode is very similar. You just hold down the audition pad for the slot you want to sample to and hit record to start sampling and again to end. Since you can have literally hundreds of sounds in a kit, this mode is great if you want to just flip through your record collection and harvest a huge number of samples. One downside to sampling on the Deluge is that all samples (across all patterns and songs) are saved to one folder for samples and one folder for re-samples. This is one thing I really hope can be changed in future updates. What I would like to see, ideally, would be an option to have a subfolder for each song so that it would be a little easier to find the sample you want when you start getting up into the hundreds and thousands of samples.

The Bottom Line / Other Things I Haven’t Mentioned Yet

This review has ended up being much longer than I intended it to be, mainly because there is just so much going on in the Deluge and I really wanted to be thorough and let people know what it’s all about. The bottom line, for me, is that this is the groovebox I’ve always wanted. From the portability and the multiple synth engines to the abnormally high polyphony and virtually endless sequencer, it ticks off every box on my wishlist. You can look at the interface and say the screen and lack of knobs don’t impress you, but it’s the intangibles that really make this box a joy to use. You can look at the paltry 64mb of RAM and scoff, but then you have to remember that none of that RAM is used for samples, as it streams everything directly from the SD card and, really, all of that RAM is used for sequencer memory. There is so much that is right about this box and very little that is wrong. I am not generally prone to blind fanboy-ism and I’m well aware of the “honeymoon period” where we tend to do nothing but praise a machine while ignoring any of its weaknesses. But I’m about 2 months in with the Deluge and I’ve used *just about* every other groovebox under the sun and I can confidently say that this is it for me. Paired with my Tempest to cover the analog side of things, I really have all of my bases covered. No matter what your setup, I truly believe that everyone could benefit from having one of these around, there’s just so much that it can do well.

So, in our last episode, I had sold off the SP-808 and brought in an SP-606. I had hoped that it would be something of an update to the 808 to bring it into the 21st century and, in many ways, I suppose it was.

First of all, the compact flash storage is a huge upgrade from the tired old Zip drive the SP-808 uses. Velocity sensitive pads are a nice touch, as is the fact that the SP-606 has two MFX units to the 808’s one. The larger screen allows for much easier waveform editing, which is nice, and the 4 track sequencer actually works on the 606 (the 808 would constantly give the “Drive Busy Error” message. The sampling process and storage structure remains just as simple as it was on the 808, maybe even simpler because you don’t have to spend time menu diving to route your effects.

But on the downside, while the 606 has decent effects, they are not nearly as editable as on the 808, where you would have several pages of parameters you could edit and save the result as an effects patch. I found the reverb to be much, much nicer on the 808, while the Lo-Fi effect was better on the 606. But all in all, I did end up missing all the control over the effects. Also, the 606 carries over the sample chop function of the SP-505 (absent on the 808) but it is somewhat crippled because it does not allow you to move the automatically placed chop points. This I really don’t understand because the 505 allowed you to do this. It really is a problem because the 606 places most of the points just a little bit off so, if you want any accuracy, you really would need to copy your sample to all 16 pads and truncate each pad down to the small bit that you need and that completely defeats the purpose of having an auto chop function.

Other considerations? At first, I thought that the 606 had lost the excellent timestretching of the 808 but it is actually there. To utilize it, you must first set the target sample as a “Phrase” in the parameter section and then go to the “BPM Sync” menu. Set it as “Fix” and dial in the BPM you want. It does actually work very well.

And if you’re buying the 606 for much touted PC integration, don’t. The P606 software is long outdated and you would need to be running XP or Vista. I found that even the drivers are outdated, as I was not able to get the USB sampling to work or get the 606 to be recognized as an audio interface.

So, all in all, the lack of manually adjustable chop points and the lack of depth in the effects section really turned me off. Rather unfortunate, as I quite liked a lot of other things about the 606.

So now I turn to the MV-8800. In this one, I’m really looking forward to hooking up a monitor and a mouse and truly having a studio centerpiece. The few times I have tried Ableton Live, I actually got quite a bit done in a short amount of time. And the MV appears to have a very similar workflow. See, I really only used Live for arrangement purposes and I liked how I could grab sections of audio from my machines and copy/paste them into a visual, linear sequencer. From what I understand, the MV functions in this same basic way but without all of the distractions of having unlimited samples and VST’s at your disposal because that is what would always screw me up (“Ok now, where did I save that again?” etc). I’m hoping that it will give me the few things I liked about using a DAW but also be an awesome hardware sampler with nice pads to bang on, 3 deep effects units and a nice big screen for editing samples (one of the things I loved about my MC-909). I don’t play out live, so portability is not an issue. I think this might be the one I’ve been waiting for, a real studio brain around which I can build a permanent set up with all of my favorite machines running into it.

I’ve been slowing down my gear purchases considerably lately but I just pulled the trigger on an SP-606 and it will, hopefully, allow to finally retire my big, bulky SP-808.

A few key improvements over the 808 that led me to grab this one:
-smaller than the 808
-8 voices instead of 4
-velocity sensitive pads
-“Roll” function
-2 effects units instead of 1
-larger screen and sample chop with waveform view
-takes compact flash instead of zip disks
-1/4″ ins and outs instead of RCA
-can also double as an audio and midi interface for the computer
-imports and exports WAV files instead of Roland’s proprietary, compressed RDAC format
-the 4 four track sequencer can send midi, while the 808’s could not
-the sequencer should not suffer from “Drive Busy” errors, while the 808 often does even with as few as 2 samples playing

But there are also a few things that have been lost from the 808:
-no four track audio recorder
-it has digital coaxial in/out but not TOS in/out
-I don’t believe it has the step sequencer for automating effect parameters
-only 1 analog input and output (808 had a main in/out and aux in/out)
-only 32 sample banks as opposed to 64 on the 808

So, all in all, I’m thinking this will be a positive move for me and it will do most of the things that the 808 was intended to do and then some. It will act mainly as a phrase sampler where I will capture sounds from my other machines and process/arrange them. I had been considering an Octatrack for this duty but this is much cheaper and should still do most of the things that I would have actually used the Octatrack for. And with the Rytm gone, the Spectralis will take over sequencing drum samples and chromatic sample playback (while still sounding every bit as good as the Rytm).

So, I got a Rytm a while back and I was initially pretty psyched about it. It is an amazing machine that covers a lot of ground that my Tempest does not. It has a much more immediate synth engine for creating drums and the sample functionality is out of this world, with analog filters, delay, reverb and overdrive per sample. Add to that the Elektron sequencer and it was a dream come true for me for awhile.

But when you try to dig really deep into the analog engine, you’ll hit a ceiling pretty quickly. It sounds great, for the most part, but I found the range of sounds you can squeeze out of it to be fairly narrow. So, no big deal, you have a sample layer to work with to make all kinds of interesting transients and even some great bassline sounds, right? Well, yes, but there are a couple of problems with this system. Keep in mind that I am writing this in June of 2015, so it is entirely possible that the issues will be taken care of in an OS update and history will show me to be an impatient little whiner. 😉

First of all, you should know that, while you can save any kit you want (analog + samples) within the project you are working on, those kits are not really available for you to use in other projects. When I say “not really,” I mean that you have to load up the project that the kit is a part of, copy the kit, re-load the project you are working in and then paste the kit into the pool. Even at this point, I was feeling that it was an inconvenience but not a dealbreaker. But the dealbreaker for me came when I realized that, once I pasted the kit into the new project, it doesn’t work properly unless you have the same samples loaded into the exact same slot number that it was in for the original kit! I’m really dumbfounded by this because the Rytm easily allows you to save a ‘sound’ that uses a sample and, when you load that sound onto a track in a different project, it automatically loads the necessary sample into the next available slot and it plays as it should. So I just have to wonder, why is it that the Rytm can not load a full kit of sounds in this same manner?!

Now, for some people, this is not going to even be a problem. For instance, if you just want to load up a default kit and shape each drum sound from scratch, this will not hinder you. But I, personally, like to save some basic kits and tweak them as needed. I just feel that it saves me the trouble of creating the same sounds over and over. I get a starting point and follow wherever it takes me from there. It’s definitely a “your mileage may vary” situation but it is also something you should know before jumping into one of these.

My other problem with the Rytm also has to do with the kit system. Say you make a cool pattern and get everything just how you want it. So you then move onto the next pattern and the Rytm, rather handily, loads the kit that you were just using so you have the same sounds ready to go in your new pattern and you can set about creating some variation. This all sounds wonderful and simple, right? Well the issue with it is that, if you go back to your first pattern, the changes you made to the kit in the second pattern have carried over and your first pattern now sounds completely different. The Rytm does give you 128 kit slots per project and the logic is that, as soon as you start a new pattern, you want to save the kit (not via the shortcut, as that will write over the original kit) before you start making any changes. Not the worst thing but I am definitely used to saving things after I’m done making them. And it’s very easy to forget, in the heat of the moment, to save your kit first thing when you start your pattern.

The way that I would like to see it work would be for the Rytm to carry over the kit sounds as it already does but make the kit for the new pattern independent of the kit for the previous pattern. Maybe tie those 128 kit slots to the 128 patterns automatically.

So, for these reasons, I’ve decided to sell my Rytm for now but I do fully expect that these issues will be addressed in an OS update eventually. If/when that does happen, I am fairly certain that I would come crawling back to the Rytm. And I honestly don’t mean to be doing an internet bitch fest here, I just think that others might find it helpful to know about these things before they buy. Really, the Rytm is a stellar product in a lot of ways and these things that I have taken issue with may not even bother some people.

This is sort of a “bread & butter” sample pack for the ESX-1, commonly used sounds with some room left over to work with. It consists of drum kits sampled into one long sample and then sliced into individual hits. In this way, each kit takes up only one sample slot.

In this soundset, you will find 808/909 samples, amen break chops and various other kits. There are also some nice single cycle waveforms which allow you to actually use the ESX to synthesize basslines and such.

All patches designed from the ground up, starting with just a plain old saw wave. So you won’t be getting a bank of existing sounds that have only had a couple of parameters changed. I mostly used the analog oscillators with only touches of the sample oscillators where needed.

This had originally been for sale for $10 but I am now making it a free download. I have another, substantially larger, pack that I will have up for sale in the near future. For the handful of people who bought this original pack, I will happily refund you $10 off the purchase of the new pack when it is available, since this one is now free. I thank you for your support.

When it comes to drum machines, the punchy, analog Roland TR’s have been the holy grail for a long time. In just the past few years, the 808 and 909 have just about doubled in price on the used market, commanding nearly $4000 for a mint specimen of either of them here in 2015. For years, all we really had to go on were rompler drum machines and, while a sample can get you halfway there easily enough, it’s simply not the same. I’ve never laid hands on a TR-909 but I have played around with the 808 and the bass drum on it certainly is substantial. I always thought that having some good samples loaded up into an ESX was close enough but when I stood there in front of an actual 808 and heard the boom, I really could tell the difference. Don’t get me wrong, I was always very happy using my ESX as a drum machine. It had a good amount of hands on editability, sounded nice and punchy and I had mine loaded up with several hundred vintage drum machine samples, which was very convenient. One box, all of my drum machine needs sorted. However, you can pitch a sample up or down but it’s not the same as tuning an actual analog bass drum. Actual drum synthesis is a bit of a different animal.

So, while the analog monosynth revival rages on, we’ve also had some very viable analog drum machine options brought to our doorstep as well. Jomox has been around for a while, of course, but I’ve always read that their earlier machines were buggy and the 888/999 seem a bit pricy to me for being just an emulation of the originals and not bringing much else to the table. I ended up procuring a used Tempest for a decent price and it also brings a six voice polysynth to the table, so we’re heading in the right direction. But, as good as the Tempest is for making weird sounds from scratch with it’s rather deep and impressive synthesis engine, there is some truth to the rumors: it requires a lot of work to really nail those old TR sounds and, even then, it often ends up sounding a bit loose. It never really bothered me much, as I was able to make some great sounds (I’m into really weird, percussive noises and it does this better than anything else, imo). But when you want that 808 boom or that 909 punch, like I said, it is maybe a bit loose. It has some quality samples on board to help out but you can’t load your own and, if we’re being honest, samples aren’t really the answer you want when you pay this much for analog drums. Now, overall, the Tempest is still my favorite piece to sit and jam with when you factor in the polysynth aspect of it on top of the weird drums you can make. It sounds amazing, is a joy to program and it runs very deep. But it is definitely not a replacement for an 808/909, imo.

And then I unexpectedly stumbled into an Analog Rytm. I never intended to, figuring that the Tempest should be more than enough for me. I actually intended to flip it. But after just a few days of playing with it, I was hooked. The synth engine is not nearly as open ended as the Tempest and I count that as a strength in this case. Point A to Point B is a short trip. The basic editing on the Rytm is a bit deeper than on the original TR’s, but not that much. There are different algorithms (aka “Machines”) for the different types of drum sounds and each of those algorithms has slightly different parameters. For example, you want a bass drum, you tune it, set decay, click, volume, etc. and you have a nice deep, punchy bass drum. So you can leave it at that and, I really have to say, it is definitely up there with the classics. But move beyond that a bit and you have full filter control and amp editing with overdrive, reverb send and delay send per sound. Just dial in a thumping 909 type kick, overdrive it just slightly and I think it will make you a believer.

And what was that other thing the Rytm has… oh yeah. User sample upload with one full GB of space on the +drive! 😉 Not only does it nail the analog drums in a big way, the Rytm can really be any of the old rompler drum machines you want it to be. Load it up with Linndrum, R-70, SR-16 samples, whatever you want. You know that “300 drum machines” sample pack that’s been around online for years? Well, you now have a drum machine that is capable of loading them all up to recall and tweak at a moment’s notice. Not only that, but samples on here run through the analog filter, overdrive and compressor just like the synth section does so they sound great. Take it a step further though and think about the drums that don’t come out of a machine: breakbeats. You have plenty of room to load up your favorite breaks and you have the tools to aggressively manipulate them. There is no sample chop on the Rytm but you don’t really need to chop it because you can isolate the hit that you want to sound on each step by adjusting the start and end points.

Like I mentioned above, synthesis on the level of the Tempest is simply not possible on the Rytm but it is very easy to load up several hundred (even thousands) of single cycle waveforms, wavetables, sample chains, etc. Whereas the Tempest gives you two LFO’s, five envelopes and an incredibly deep mod matrix, the Rytm gives you one LFO, filter and amp envelopes, bit reduction, overdrive, reverb and delay. Whereas on the Tempest any sound can be played chromaticly and with six voice polyphony, Rytm can play chromatically but only monophonically. But that doesn’t mean you can’t crank out some great synth sounds. Monophonic basslines come very easily out of the Rytm and, truth be told, the filter is more flexible than the one on the Tempest. You have, if I recall, six different filter types on the Rytm (including a band pass) so it’s entirely possible to make airy, wispy pad sounds and the like in addition to gritty basslines.

Sequencer-wise, it’s really a matter of preference. With it’s excellent pads and arpeggiator, I find that the Tempest is more geared toward real time recording whereas the Rytm, with its smooth parameter lock system (and slightly stiffer pads), specializes in step sequencing mode. That’s not to say that you can’t do it both ways on either machine, because you certainly can. The biggest difference is when it comes to doing fine editing on your patterns. The Tempest has a screen with a matrix on it where you scroll to the note event you want to edit, select from a handful of paramaters and enter the value you want on that step (velocity, etc). With the Rytm, you hold down the trig button for the note event you want to edit and simply turn the knobs to where you want them. Beyond that, you can make the parameter do a smooth slide to the value of the next note event (like a filter sweep, for example) and you can adjust the placement of the note trigger by using the micro-timing feature (this is quite awesome and sooo easy to do). I mentioned above that the Rytm gives you overdrive, reverb and delay sends per part and these (apart from delay) are absent on the Tempest. But the Tempest’s sequencer somewhat makes up for the lack of effects with its assignable touchstrips and by allowing you to roll and/or reverse individual sounds or the entire beat.

In the end, both the Tempest and the Rytm qualify as next level, in my humble opinion, and I am very happy that I now own both (even if I had to sacrifice some other great gear to make it happen). I really look at it as a yin and yang situation, rather than an either/or. The Tempest makes unique sounding analog drums and the Rytm handles the bread and butter. The Tempest adds a six voice analog polysynth and the Rytm gives you a fairly deep sampler that can handle classic break samples and some monosynth sounds. Both of them have complex sequencers that will appeal to live performers but are also at home in the studio. Both are very solidly built and, on the used market, are in just about the same price bracket these days. One major difference is that Tempest is capable of (monophonically) sequencing external gear on one of its tracks but the Rytm can not. The pads on the Rytm still send midi, of course, but the sequencer does not at this time.

So if you would ask me which one you should get? I say do whatever you need to do to get both. In my opinion, you won’t find more power per square inch than with a Tempest/Rytm combo. Tack on a phrase sampler at the end of your chain (I use an SP-808 but I could see an Octatrack doing major damage) and you’re pretty much set. But if that seems like overkill for you or it’s just not feasible, it’s really a question of what you like or need. Just check the differences I’ve outlined and I hope that it can shed some light but keep in mind that as of now (May of 2015), both of these pieces are still in development, so there’s no telling what functionalities might be added to each. But whichever way you go, you win, the way I see it.